Tag Archives: print book

Are you feeling a wee bit guilty about the shiny new e-reader you’re enjoying? If you’re a bibliophile, it’s hard to escape the nagging feeling that you’re betraying the cause of the “real book” and local bookstores by consuming books via e-reader. But what is the truth? Are e-readers and e-books going to kill print and drive libraries and bookstores out of business? I don’t think so–at least not yet.

I love print books, and I have the library to prove it–one of the boys started counting one day, and finally quit at around 5000, and he hadn’t even started on the upstairs. (Yes, I am getting ready to thin the herd, but no, it has nothing to do with e-books.) So . . . why would I ever want to read a book on my iPad?

Frankly, I don’t. I like the feel of paper. I like writing (with pencil, of course) in the margins and inside the covers. I want to be able to easily flip back and re-read specific passages even if I haven’t bookmarked or highlighted them. I don’t like reading off a screen, and I don’t believe it’s entirely good for children, either. I like the solidity of a real print book in my hand.

But practicality intervenes. I travel a lot and I read fast. This means that if I take print books, I need to take several. I also need to anticipate exactly what I will want to be reading through the duration of the trip. Since I am normally reading a minimum of 3-4 books at a time, this is cumbersome, to say the least. Baggage and weight restrictions put a severe crimp in what I can pack, and back issues limit what I can carry. And now that I am on the downhill slope to old, airplane and hotel lighting isn’t always adequate for reading.

So now I have a small library on my iPad. I don’t love it, but it meets a need so I like it. Our local library lends e-books as well as print books, and there are always free classics available. The e-reader serves a useful purpose and as long as I can catch wireless or 3G, I’ll never run out of things to read. Will it replace my print library? No.

The infographic below (and a study by BISG, the Book Industry Study Group) suggests that I’m not alone. It seems that people who own e-readers generally read more of both types of books than people who don’t have e-readers. A reader is a reader, so format doesn’t change that. An e-reader can even keep alive the love of reading for young mothers, solopreneurs, and others who barely have time to breathe. So you can be grateful without guilt for your e-reader, (but don’t forget to support your local library and independent bookstores!).

About

Janice Campbell has been writing and speaking about things that matter for over two decades. She’s a lifelong reader, author of the Excellence in Literature curriculum and other education resources, and Director of the National Association of Independent Writers and Editors (NAIWE). Whether teaching writers and entrepreneurs how to create a sustainable microbusiness or high school students to love literature, Janice’s focus is on lighting lamps so that others can more easily find their way.